“I swear,” said he, placing his hand on the new testament, “that I receive and acknowledge for my true and lawful lord and sovereign, the high, mighty, and great king, don John the IVth, to whom I pay homage as such, in the name of the whole body of the clergy.” The other members of the assembly took the same oath.
[21] The king and the three estates took the same oath as had before been taken at the coronation; and the states-general acknowledged don Theodosius, the son of the duke of Braganza, as prince of Portugal, and lawful successor to the crown.
[22] Mello, whom the king of Portugal sent into France on this occasion, was witty and intelligent; and speaking to the queen of France, the sister of Philip the IVth, he expressed his fear that his embassy must be painful to her majesty, since it tended to deprive the king her brother of a kingdom: to which the queen replied, “It is indeed a truth that I am the sister of his catholic majesty; but am I not at the same time the mother of the dauphin?”
The queen, conversing afterwards with different noblemen who accompanied the ambassador, in the Castilian tongue, Mello took the liberty of asking why she had not addressed him in the same language? “From the fear of giving you pain,” answered the queen. “That would have been the case,” replied Mello, “had I regarded you as a Castilian, but as a great queen the effect would have been different.”
[23] Olivares was perfectly well acquainted with this Baëse, who having been extremely serviceable to him on different occasions, he had invested him with the honourable order of Christ. The Portugueze nobility, offended at seeing the order so degraded, could not help observing, “that the duke ought either to raise him still higher, or condemn him to the gallows.”
[24] John the IVth was of the middle size, but not very well shaped. His hair was light, his eyes sparkling, his complexion ruddy and animated, and his countenance particularly pleasing. He was surnamed the fortunate, but he scarcely ever appeared at the head of his army; it may therefore be said of him, as Edward the IIId of England said of the French king Charles the Vth, sirnamed the wise, “that no monarch ever appeared so seldom in arms, or gained so many victories.”
[25] Her Welch uncle, i. e. her father’s or mother’s first cousin.
[26] See Memoirs of Fremont d’Ablancourt.
[27] Memoirs of Fremont d’Ablancourt.
[28] This event was not quite believed to be the effect of chance.